Designing a Training Course

You have to have a goal in life...

Designing an effective training course is different to designing a workshop presentation. The aims are different, and the structure is different and the audience is different. All of these factors to be considered carefully when designing course materials.

STEP 1: Course Aims and Learning Objectives

The starting point for any training course should be its overall aim; i.e. Who is this for? What will they learn? Why should they be interested? Who are the stakeholders and what knowledge or behaviour do they want to be covered?These are called the 'Course Aims' and should be formulated early in the process, as this will help direct your thinking during the entire design process.The next, and equally important, step is to formulate some key Learning Objectives.

These are short statements which complete the following sentence:

"By the end of this course, the attendees will be able to.."

They should be Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and targeted (SMART), and should generally begin with active verbs, e.g.

- Connect to GÉANT and send your data securely to its destination using Public/Private keys

and not:

- Understand what GÉANT is.